I'm shocked.. Bernie the betta just ate a cherry shrimp in front of me.. I didn't see him bit into it per-se but I just came home from work and saw a shrimp in his mouth tail first.. Then the head fell clean off.. I guess I'm going to make it a shrimp only tank, and put Bernie in a 3 gal critter keeper..

+1
My curious Grace looks ridiculous when caught in the act with orange whiskers. She knows if she gets caught, she's going to the timeout box. So she'd look really stressed trying to stuff herself before I catch her. LOL

When you add shrimp to a tank you don't just let the bag float and pour them in like you do fish. As everyone has said, they are extremely sensitive to parameter changes; especially PH.

Get a plastic or glass bowl and open the bag and gently pour shrimp and water in. I use a glass bowl so I can tell if any are stuck to the sides.

Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of tank water every 10-15 minutes three times.

I remove my Betta and add shrimp to aquarium. I'm bad and dump the whole bowl into the tank and don't worry about the breeder's water.

I give the shrimp 30 minutes to adjust, float Willie or Si in the tank for 10 minutes and then let them go.

I have 20+ RCS in Si's 5 gallon tank and all are at least 1/2" in size. The breeder I buy from sends a bunch of extras. I will soon be ordering another 20 for Willie's tank.

I have heavily planted tanks with moss and driftwood. I also bought shrimp houses and half-tubes so the shrimp can hide when they molt. Got them from www.plecocaves.com.

When I tried adding three-five shrimp at a time, the Bettas had a field day. At the breeder's suggestion, I added 20 and had no problem. Go figure. Guess Si was overwhelmed. He actually hid from them for 30 minutes!

When you add shrimp to a tank you don't just let the bag float and pour them in like you do fish. As everyone has said, they are extremely sensitive to parameter changes; especially PH.

Get a plastic or glass bowl and open the bag and gently pour shrimp and water in. I use a glass bowl so I can tell if any are stuck to the sides.

Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of tank water every 10-15 minutes three times.

for me my procedure is slightly different.

I cut open the bag top and acclimate and float the bag with a container inside the tank for about 1.5 hr. Then I cut the bag vertically down from top to bottom to allow the water to flow into the container gently. Then another 1.5hr of acclimation while removing the yucky water along the way. final release into the tank later.

by cutting the bag vertically top to bottom, you eliminate the need to get them out of the bag if they got stuck and it is gradual and less traumatic. Learned this from the instructions that came with my theShrimpFarm.com purchase. So I have been using this method for inverts and fish.

This is another link on acclimating the shrimp, assuming the seller is packing them in a fancy bag that was described in the article, that is if you bought from them, but the general instructions will be a good point of reference.

I think there are 2 schools of thoughts: acclimate versus a one time shock dumping. I think this one is acclimate method. I personally prefer acclimation.

she talked about both methods in detail~
what her article said is that in order for drip acclimation (great acclimation method btw!) to not be more stressful than dumping, it should be done over several hours~ ^_^
dumping is simply my own method. lol